Contributions in Merlin

Abstract Strukturierte Produkte sind für Investoren eine interessante Möglichkeit um die verschiedensten Strategien umzusetzen. Diese Arbeit untersucht zwei Arten von ihnen, die Partizipations- und die Renditeoptimierungsprodukte. Besonders im Fokus soll der Vergleich ihrer Performance mit derjenigen des Underlyings sein. Es resultiert eine signifikante Rendite-Differenz zugunsten der Underlyings. Die Ursache ist nicht abschliessend geklärt, hängt aber mit der Marktumfeld der Untersuchung zusammen. Es kann aber auch ein Indiz für hohe Margen in den Strukturierten Produkten sein.

Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass die Cash-flow Sensitivität der Investitionstätigkeit und die dadurch entstehende Unter- und Überinvestitionsproblematik einen negativen, jedoch nicht in allen Messungen signifikanten Einfluss, auf die Aktienrendite von Schweizer Unternehmen besitzt. Der Effekt ist ausschliesslich bei grossen Unternehmen zu beobachten. Zudem wird ein signifikant positiver Zusammenhang zwischen dem operativen Cash-flow und der Investitionstätigkeit in der Schweiz beobachtet. Die Cash-flow-Volatilität hat entgegen der Studie von Huang (2009) in der Schweiz keinen negativen Einfluss auf die Aktienrendite. Die Resultate zeigen hingegen, dass ein Faktor, der die Cash-flow-Volatilität berücksichtigt, den Erklärungsgehalt des Fama/French Drei-Faktoren-Modells in der Schweiz erhöhen kann.

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To what extent were Woodrow Wilson’s ideas about public administration informed by German organic political theory? Drawing on the writings of Wilson, Lorenz von Stein, and Johann K. Bluntschli on public administration, and comparing American and German primary sources, the author offers insights into Wilson’s general concept of public administration, as well as his understanding of the politics–administration dichotomy. With regard to current administrative research, this study underscores how the transfer of ideas profoundly contributes to advancing comparative public administration and helps clarify terminological difficulties and conflicting perspectives among diverse administrative science traditions.

We examine equilibria in competitive insurance markets with adverse selection when wealth differences arise endogenously from unobservable savings or labor supply decisions. The endogeneity of wealth implies that high-risk individuals may ceteris paribus exhibit the lower marginal willingness to pay for insurance than low risks, a phenomenon that we refer to as irregular-crossing preferences. In our model, both risk and patience (or productivity) are privately observable. In contrast to the models in the existing literature, where wealth heterogeneity is exogenously assumed, equilibria in our model no longer exhibit a monotone relation between risk and coverage. Individuals who purchase larger coverage are no longer higher risks, a phenomenon frequently observed in empirical studies.

Background: One of the main disadvantages in today’s prostheses is their lack of sensory feedback. To overcome this problem, many different ideas have been suggested. One of these approaches is called “sensory substitution”, and exploits the amazing plasticity of our brain. By providing sensory information from one modality through another one, people can regain some of the lost sensory functions. Tactile sensory substitution is achieved by stimulate directly the nerves of mechanoreceptors using a method called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). In particular, electrical stimulation can be used to generate a moving sensation that we can exploit to transmit dynamical information to the body. Goal / Methods: Healthy subjects were tested on their ability to recognize the direction of the moving sensation. Stimulation patterns could differ in the signal intensity, the stimulation duration, the direction of the moving sensation, and the stimulation side. By analyzing the performance for each factor, we studied the optimal stimulation parameters. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of hemispheric dominance by comparing left-handed and right-handed subjects. Finally, we analyzed the performance in pre- and post-training tests to measure the effect of training on performance. Results / Conclusion: We found that in general, people are able to recognize the moving sensation. The results show that neither handedness, stimulation side, nor stimulation length have an influence on the ability to detect the direction. The important factor is the change in signal intensity required to create the moving sensation. Furthermore, we could show that people benefit from supervised training; they could increase and stabilize their performance. We can conclude that the combination of electrical stimulation and moving sensations provides a promising tool for tactile feedback systems.

Multiplicity of equilibria is a prevalent problem in many economic models. Often equilibria are characterized as solutions to a system of polynomial equations. This paper gives an introduction to the application of GrÄobner basis methods for ¯nding all solutions of a polynomial system. The Shape Lemma, a key result from algebraic geometry, states under mild assumptions that a given equilibrium system has the same solution set as a much simpler triangular system. Essentially the computation of all solutions then reduces to ¯nding all roots of a single polynomial in a single unknown. The software package Singular computes the equivalent simple system. If all coeficients in the original equilibrium equations are rational numbers or parameters then the GrÄobner basis computations of Singular are exact. This fact implies that the GrÄobner basis methods cannot only be used for a numerical approximation of equilibria but in fact may allow the proof of theoretical results for the underlying economic model. Three economic applications illustrate that without much prior knowledge of algebraic geometry GrÄobner basis methods can be easily applied to gain interesting insights into many modern economic models.

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